Forward Deployed Consultant (Private Equity)

About the role

The $1 trillion private equity industry runs on due diligence; and due diligence still runs on manual, fragmented, analyst-heavy workflows. Market maps built from scratch. Slide decks assembled by hand. Synthesis work that takes weeks and costs hundreds of thousands. We are changing that.

As a Forward Deployed Consultant at Riplo, you'll run live AI-enabled diligence engagements for PE fund clients; commercial AI DD, vendor AI DD, market analysis; while feeding everything you learn back into the platform. You're not a consultant who happens to use AI tools. You're an operator who understands what great diligence looks like and is obsessed with building the infrastructure that makes it repeatable at scale. This is a highly visible role: your work will directly influence client outcomes, product direction, and how quickly we can define the category.

What you'll do

• Diligence delivery: Lead end-to-end AI-enabled diligence engagements for PE fund clients — commercial DD, vendor DD, market sizing, competitive landscape. You own the output and the client relationship.
• Product feedback loop: Every engagement surfaces gaps, edge cases, and workflow insights. You translate those into structured product input that makes the next engagement faster and better.
• Knowledge architecture: Build the repeatable frameworks, templates, and analytical building blocks that turn one-off engagements into a scalable platform.
• GTM and business development: Leverage your PE network to open doors. Support early commercial conversations and contribute to the sales motion as we build it.
• Everything else that matters: At this stage, the job changes week to week. What stays constant: you're in the room for every critical decision, and you co-own the execution that follows.

Who you are

We're looking for an operator with deep PE diligence experience, an ownership mindset, and genuine excitement about building something new. You take pride in delivering rigorous, high-quality analytical work; and you're energised by the chance to combine that with intelligent systems that make it faster and more repeatable.

You’ll thrive at Riplo if you:

• Have 3–8 years in top-tier strategy consulting (MBB or equivalent) with meaningful PE diligence experience - commercial DD, vendor DD, or technology DD.
• Have direct exposure to AI in a PE context: AI portfolio work, technology due diligence, or AI strategy for funds or portcos. This is the sweet spot.
• Take responsibility for outcomes not tasks, close loops reliably, and care deeply about the quality of what goes out the door.
• Can structure a market analysis, interrogate a business model, and write a compelling narrative with equal comfort.
• Are comfortable being visible with clients and contributing to business growth over time.
• Use modern AI tools to accelerate your work, not as a novelty.
• Have clear evidence of sustained top-tier performance in something — inside or outside work.

About Riplo

Riplo is building the AI infrastructure that powers the next generation of PE diligence. We emerged from stealth in March 2026 with $3.1M in pre-seed funding led by Cherry Ventures, joined by Blue Lion Capital, partners from McKinsey and BCG, the founders of QuantumBlack, and angels from OpenAI, Apple, Goldman Sachs, and Hg Capital. Our founding team is ex-McKinsey, BCG, DeepMind, and Hg.

Every engagement we touch makes the system smarter. The context, the judgment, the work product — all of it compounds into a knowledge layer no individual consultant or competing tool can replicate. The next twelve months are when the category gets defined. Joining now means working on the problems that determine whether Riplo becomes the default.

How we work

• AI-native by default: We work in an AI-assisted way day to day — using modern tools to move faster on routine work so we can spend more time on judgment, client outcomes, and building something enduring.
• Owners, not executors: We see gaps, we fill them, we don't wait to be told. Every person on the team co-owns the outcome.
• Move fast, then solidify: We deliver high-quality work quickly, then codify what works into frameworks and repeatable workflows. Progress beats polish, but quality is non-negotiable.
• Build in the open: We share context freely, challenge each other directly, and make decisions fast. No politics, no layers.

What we offer

• Competitive compensation and meaningful equity from day one.
• Direct daily access to founders who've built and backed category-defining companies.
• More context, responsibility, and commercial impact than people with far more senior titles at larger firms.
• The chance to define what AI-native diligence looks like; from inside the engagements, not a deck about it.
• A front-row seat to the AI revolution in private equity, with your hands on the wheel.

Location: London is the primary base, with flexibility for the right candidate.